Avalon (mission)
__TOC__ Map description Weapons and pickups Weapons Pickups Monsters Walkthrough Having acquired all of the artifacts, you are headed to the TCA headquarters on Avalon, where your Odyssey began. The plan is to for you to touch down and talk to General Drexler in person about the artifacts so that you won't have to worry about your conversation being intercepted electronically. As your dropship heads down to Avalon, energy bolts from the TCA's planetary cannon are fired at you! Your dropship takes a hit and crash lands. The Skaarj already intercepted some conversations, it turns out, and overtook the planetary cannon's control tower so that they'd have a cunning trap waiting for you. There is no sign of Drexler, although Commander Hawkins escaped to his flagship, the Dorian Gray. You'll have to retake the tower and deactivate the Planetary Cannon before the Atlantis will be able to pick you up. From your dropship, head straight forward and ready your Sniper Rifle or Rocket Launcher. At the bottom of the hill in front of you is a dead Marine with a Sniper Rifle and a clip of Sniper Rifle ammo next to him. As you continue on you'll hear a whistle of some sort call out and as you head up the hill further in front of you you'll be greeted by a Heavy Skaarj. Fight him at long range with your Sniper Rifle or Rocket Launcher, and definitely fall back as you fight. Your next enemy is atop the hill; a Medium Skaarj will approach. Many weapons work well here, and against most Skaarj you'll face in this level. You have plenty of weapons and plenty of experience killing Skaarj, so you should generally have no lack of effective strategies to employ. From the hilltop, head right onto the paved area near the tower. You'll soon face 2 Light Skaarj. Consider using the Laser Cannon on them; 1 first trigger shot downs them and they can't block or dodge it. Further along the paved area, toward the railing, is another Medium Skaarj, but also note the 2 dead Marines around here. One is slumped against a wall alone. The other, off of the paved part of ground a bit, has an Assault Rifle next to him that you can grab. Once you have cleaned out this area, head around the tower to the left, along a path with railing at the edges. You'll soon find an elevator heading up the tower. Go in- you'll hear human screams as you do- and activate the elevator. At the top, after getting out, you'll see a Medium Skaarj dangling a man over the edge of the railing. He'll drop the man when you exit the elevator and charge at you instead. Either have the Flamethrower ready and back away while immersing him in flames or, better yet, take him out in one hit with a well-placed Incendiary Grenade. Don't bother with lighter weapons here; the confined space is highly dangerous. Once he's dead, head left onto an open platform where you'll find a Sniper Rifle and 3 clips of ammo for it. Grab all that you can hold. Then turn around and progress in the direction the Skaarj was and run up the curving stairways onto a large platform. A Light Skaarj will run down some stairs to meet you at the platform; blast him while dodging his attacks. Be ready for opposition when you head up the next set of steps. It leads into the tower control room, which is guarded by both a Light and Medium Skaarj. I wouldn't recommend entering the room; you might want to fire a couple Grenades or other weapons from the doorway and then back out as they chase after you. Once you kill both Skaarj, investigate the room in order to fond some goods. Also, towards the center of the room is a very slightly elevated station with the planetary cannon's controls. Operate them and the cannon will recede into a silo in the ground and a protective sliding gate will close over the top. The Marines will message you, informing you that they've set up a perimeter at another building. Also, the Atlantis is now heading down. You must now find and meet up with the Marines. Head back to the elevator and hit the controls again. This time they won't work. It turns out that the Skaarj have sabotaged the power to it. A Marine is soon sent to the power station to repair the damage so you can safely return. Your job is to cover him with your Sniper Rifle. Whip out your sniper rifle and get ready for the obligitary FPS sniper bit. You have to protect a marine while he fixes the generator. The generator is the thing surrounded by the fence, you'll also see the area is strewn with explosive gas bottles. Position yourself on the open ledge where the Sniper Rifle and 3 clips were. He'll soon run out into the open and shout things to you to guide your scope to him. Activate your Rifle's scope and find him. You'll soon begin a sequence in which a series of Light Skaarj (each killable in one shot of your Sniper Rifle) will run out and attack the Marine, first one at a time and eventually rapidly from multiple directions. You'll notice there are explosive barrels lying around in various places. Toward the end of this conflict 2 Heavy Skaarj will come marching out. You should probably save the clusters of barrels until they walk near them. The one inside the fenced-off area (which the Marine will soon break into to patch up an electronic board) is useful as a sort of last resort in case any Light Skaarj get that far. If Skaarj do manage to reach and attack the Marine, he's far from helpless- he'll probably even blast a couple of Light Skaarj to death before he goes down. But if you play your cards right that should never be necessary. Monitor large areas of ground using a slight zoom, identify Light Skaarj targets, zoom in further to pick them off and repeat as necessary. There are about 2 dozen Light Skaarj as well as the 2 Heavy ones that will come later. Depending on the difficulty level, the marine will survive for differing amounts of time. On easy, he can take a real good kicking, but on Normal or Unreal, you'll have to be quite careful, and tactical. Eventually the Marine will finish up and you can ride the elevator back down. As soon as you exit it, the Light Marine, armed with a Shotgun, will be waiting to lead you to the rendezvous point. Follow him and be prepared for a surprise attack from a single Skaarj as soon as you start moving. After him, no Skaarj will attack you from behind, above, or anywhere else that's unusual. Scout ahead now with your Sniper Rifle's scope (or start locking on Rockets with trigger 2) because your next conflict will be with 2 Light Skaarj who you'll spot in the distance long before they can attack you. As you approach a hill a Medium Skaarj will run down to attack you, and as soon as you start heading up 2 more will follow. You might lose your Marine ally around here, but he's not essential. If he dies just keep heading up the hill. Toward the top you'll have to face a Heavy Skaarj. Lobbing Poison Gas Grenades up at him or immersing him in Flamethrower flames are effective strategies here, but don't do so for too long before you fall back and switch to ranged tactics. Once this guy starts attacking you he won't fool around. Finish him off by whatever means are necessary and continue to ascend the hill. You'll now meet up with a Medium Marine armed with a Rocket Launcher and a Light Marine with an Assault Rifle. They'll greet you briefly, but soon give a "heads up" that more Skaarj are coming. Follow them as they run down a hill. Run ahead of them in the direction of 2 large rocks with a gap in between them and a pile of powerups visible. Make sure to save health and energy pickups if you're very near to full health or energy and wouldn't be getting the full effect from the powerups; you'll need them soon. The Marines will set up 2 Drone Guns on the outside of the 2 rocks and a Plasma Barrier between the rocks. While they're heading out to do that, I'd recommend running through the gap between the rocks, in an arc toward the left side from there and jump on top of the left rock. It will make a very effective perch to fire from in the upcoming battle since it gives you great visibility and you can dodge backwards to drop off it and behind cover when powerful projectiles are fired at you. Ready your Sniper Rifle, Rocket Launcher, Magnum Pistol or another very powerful weapon and watch atop the hills to the left of the 2 antenna far out in front of you (you'll see them rising from behind a hill). Your enemies here will be large numbers of Heavy Skaarj, the first 2 of which will come from this hilltop and drop down to ground level as they slowly approach you. Your Marines will back you up here once the Skaarj are in their line of sight, but you should start shooting as soon as you see them. After the 2 first Heavy Skaarj have come, start keeping an eye on the path to the right, where 2 more Heavy Skaarj will soon approach from far away. Once all 4 are firing you'll be dodging some massive firepower. Don't stop hitting with everything you've got; once the Skaarj get close enough, try switching to Toxic Gas and Incendiary Grenades to do some REAL damage. If either pair of Skaarj die so that all your enemies are now coming from one direction, you may want to jump down and get a little bit closer so you can have more room to maneuver, since it will be easier to dodge now. As you fight you'll start to hear speech transmissions from the crew of the Atlantis. Someone is firing on them and they seem to be in dire trouble! It has taken hits from a powerful weapon and can't take much more before it will be destroyed. Dalton tries to get Aida to explain what's happening but she's too busy on board the Atlantis, trying to manage the ship as it takes considerable damage. After a brief break, 2 more Heavy Skaarj will attack from each of their 2 entry points, just like before. Keep fighting as you have been, using any powerful weapons you still have ammunition for. Once you've killed these 4 Skaarj as well, you'll be done with your fighting for this mission... but the crew of the Atlantis just isn't that fortunate. With the Atlantis teetering on the brink of destruction, Aida sends a burst transmission into your Power Armors' computer system. This coded transmission will require a special station to decode, but contains a lengthy audio recording that will be vitally important. The Atlantis circles around, dodging repeated energy blasts from an unknown source. After successfully dodging several blasts, one hits and tears the ship to pieces, all of which hurtle into hilltops and explode. The full crew of the Atlantis is now dead beyond any doubt. Commander Hawkins sends an immediate request to evacuate you and the surviving Marines from the planet and bring you onboard his starship, the Dorian grey. Quick Level Completion Difficulty Differences Tips and tricks * There is plenty of Sniper Rifle ammo in this level so don't be afraid to use it wherever it's useful. Trivia * This is the only mission to have absolutely no music. * Like Na Koja Abad, Avalon is both the name of the mission and the first (and only) level of the mission, as evidenced when you save a game and select to load it again. * This mission features the last appearance of John Dalton's dropship, the PeaceKeeper, and the TCA Atlantis, due to its destruction at the hands of the planetary cannon. Gallery (23) Avalon again - Unreal II External links and references See also